I do believe it was a Tuesday when I found an album in a forgotten micro-SD card that recorded Hamlet's visit to my Eternal City. The pictures in that album etched a dreamy, dreamy smile on my face as I thought back to his sojourn.
French Sundays.
How effulgently my summer had bloomed at the Eternal City, even more so with Hamlet coming to visit. One of the most piquant flavours that my City offers up-and it's a seasonal one, mind-is when it becomes Wharton's New York, sometimes in very uncanny ways. Though in my mind I had planned meals and sorties and all sorts of epicurean delights for my exalted guest, I suddenly found that, my friends, The Aristocracy were absent! Charles Ryder was vacationing in the Land of Plenty, doing his philanthropic bit by visiting orphanages, courting movie stars by majestic waterfalls...it was all idyllic fun with a Lacoste tag! My dear Verlaine's schedule was a difficult thing to balance and the same went for Helena. Where one was dealing with a packed salon, the other could not tear herself from the demands of work. The lovely Hermia (who I haven't mentioned before) did not grace us that summer with her delightful person and even Sir Benedick, who had become a sort of fixture in my life, forsook the glitz of the city for more tropical shores. What was a Van der Luyden to do?! At my wit's end, I called in a favour from Mercutio. Mercutio and I go way back to a high school French class when I was a dumpy male version of Hermione Granger who could translate passages with a kind of alacrity that was unbecoming of a class so morbid, so uninterestedly taught! And that, constant reader, is how Mercutio and I became friends: over a dull passage about bored French children who go ghost hunting in a coal-mine!
As much as I enjoy Mercutio and his charming girlfriend, I hadn't met any others of his circle. In my Wharton-esque mood, I ended up christening them 'People who Wrote'. These Bohemians have rites that are vastly different from ours: there is little scheduling, the meals are quick and the entertainment is the kind that one secretly enjoys. I asked Mercutio if Hamlet and I could join him and his friends for this one afternoon, after which, I found the clear blue skies of my mind clouding over with apprehension: I had never socialised with People who Wrote before! What would I do? What would I say? O God, I did not want to come across as a snob! Having posed these questions to Mercutio, the reply I got was similar to what Mrs. Struthers said to Newland Archer in the novel that seems to mirror Hamlet's time in my City: "Come and be amused, and you will find a number of your friends." He was right. He was so right. A flurry of cards, impromptu musicales...such delightful people! I don't know how I score with them, but Hamlet was a hit! As he was wont to be! Hamlet being Hamlet charmed everyone from The People Who Wrote to discerning Verlaine. Oh, the aerial pleasures of a French Sunday!
Metropolitan Gloam.
Yes, I do believe it was a Tuesday when I was walking back from one of my professor's (the inimitable IgTinaFey) office, after having perpetrated ugly drama over a grade, so potent that Tennessee Williams would have been proud, when this strange, recondite dreamscape flashed upon the horizon of my muggy, sleep-deprived, caffeine spiked mind:
It was summer and the Eternal City had eased away the residual frost-bite from my skin with its warm fingers- it was a love different from the one I received at my Spitsbergen, where I was expected to help out, and be humble. The Eternal City is like an indulgent parent, or a besotted patron who lets one wax exactly as decadent as one pleases. It was summer and Hamlet was over, my luxuriant lassitude now had a purpose! I remember that afternoon when Hamlet and I went to The Biggest Mall in the World. We drank overpriced lattes served by stiff Armani-clad waiters, and paid court to some of the most magical shops in the world. Hyperbolic, much? Well, I am in love!
While these thoughts were a balm to my inflamed psyche, one incident sat at the core of it all. It played in my mind, in elegant black and white, as I walked back...to what?
In any case, Hamlet and I were at Gucci when an elegant coat in indigo caught my eye. It seemed to have been fashioned out of the metropolitan gloam of an after-work Friday evening. I wanted to possess it. I wanted to don it, and don the persona of the slightly harried, ashenly handsome executive who jet-sets between financial capitals and amuses himself with almost-romances at snooty airport bars. I asked the attendant for the price, and soon we were talking fashion.
"Are you a student?" he asked.
I responded in the affirmative, but before I could tell him that my fate was tied to a land far, far away he blurted out the following:
"You should consider working here. We could use people who are knowledgeable about fashion. It would be good experience for you."
For a minute, I stepped beyond the veil into an alternate reality. In this reality, I was a communications major in the Eternal City who was paying his way through college by working at Gucci. I had it all: a cherry-red second-hand car, a job I enjoyed, a job that REQUIRED me to wear Gucci and spout witticisms seasoned with nods to Frida Giannini, surreptitious 'forbidden love'-esque visits to the Tom Ford store, slowly rising in the ranks, an MBA, the metropolitan gloam...I wanted it all so badly.
In the then present, I felt worthless as I walked back from the ugly drama at my professor's and a panic attack at the library. As I looked up into the more cosmopolitan gloam of the Spitsbergen, I felt that familiar need gnawing at the valves of my heart. I wanted it so badly. But could I give up the pristine labs, the elaborate procedures? Could I trade in the vitriolic arrogance of a scientist for that of Gucci? Could I give up Hamlet, Punjaban, Santiago, Masakalli? If I had made that choice and stayed, I would have missed out on meeting Lord Kengleson, Butters, Wendy, Bebe, Tenorman and so many others...I could have stayed. But could I have forgiven myself for excluding these people from my life without really realising that I had done so? What they don't tell you about the metropolitan gloam is that it can often be a lonely place, but...
I seem to be going around in circles. Was I right in thinking that I know exactly how things like those began, and there can be no stopping such thoughts and the dreams of decadence that they inspire, and so they should be dashed before they take flight? I shall desist. I shall be good. Good, because no good can come of this.
As I write this, my wily iPod plays up Suzanne Vega's 'Caramel'. What could be more fitting, really, as I wrestle with treasonous thoughts about unrequited love....
It won't do
to dream of caramel,
to think of cinnamon
and long for you.
It won't do
to stir a deep desire,
to fan a hidden fire
that can never burn true.
I know your name,
I know your skin,
I know the way
these things begin;
But I don't know
how I would live with myself,
what I'd forgive of myself
if you don't go.
So goodbye,
sweet appetite,
no single bite
could satisfy...
I know your name,
I know your skin,
I know the way
these things begin;
But I don't know
what I would give of myself,
how I would live with myself
if you don't go.
I am a fool. Such a silly little fool.
Until the next time,
GossipGuy.
